226 



LIVERY -STABLE KEEPERS, AGISTERS, ETC. 



The horse's 

 condition. 



Eatage let for 

 a certain 

 time. 



from liability merely on the ground that he did not know 

 that the animal causing the injury was ferocious. This 

 statement would appear to be fully justified by the decision 

 of the Queen's Bench Division in the case of Smiih v. 

 Cook (b), the facts of which were as follows : — An agister of 

 cattle placed a horse in a field with a number of heifers, 

 knowing that a bull, kept on adjoining land, had several 

 times been found in the adjoining field, and there was no 

 sufficient fence to keep it out. He did not, however, know 

 that the bull was of a mischievous disposition. The horse 

 was gored by the bull and killed ; and in an action by the 

 owner of the horse against the agister for breach of con- 

 tract to take reasonable care, the jury found for the 

 plaintiff. It was held that the fact that the agister had no 

 knowledge of the mischievous disposition of the particular 

 bull was no ground for disturbing the verdict, as such know- 

 ledge was not essential to his liability under his contract 

 as an agister to take reasonable care of the horse. 



It is only just, that if A. send his horse to B. to be kept 

 for him at grass for a certain time, B. should be answerable 

 to him, if the horse when returned appear in worse con- 

 dition than horses usually are under such circumstances, 

 unless B. show that the horse has been in a good pasture, 

 and therefore that the falling off must have arisen from 

 some fault in his constitution. But were B. to agree to 

 take in A.'s horse as one of ten to graze on a certain field, 

 in that case B. would not be answerable, if A.'s horse 

 fell off in condition in consequence of the field being eaten 

 bare. 



It will be seen by a comparatively modern case that on 

 a demise of land or the vesture of land (as the eatage of a 

 field) for a specific term at a certain rent, there is no implied 

 obligation on the part of the lessor that it shall be fit for 

 the purpose for which it is taken. Therefore, where A. had 

 agreed in writing to take the eatage of twenty-four acres 

 of land from B. for seven months, at a rent of 401., and 

 then stocked the land with beasts, several of which died a 

 few days afterwards, from the effect of a poisonous sub- 

 stance, which had accidentally been spread over the field 

 without B.'s knowledge among some manure; the Court 

 of Exchequer held that A. was not entitled on that account 

 to throw up the land, but continued liable for the whole 

 rent. Mr. Baron Parke saying, in the course of the argu- 



(}) 1 Q. B D. 79 ; 45 L. J., Q. B. 122 ; 33 L. T., K. S. 722. 



